Suprasegmental phonology
SUPRASEGMENTAL PHONOLOGY
• Traditional phonology deals in segments (phones)—individual speech sounds like vowels and consonants
John Fry San Jos´e State University
• Suprasegmental phonology studies those aspects of speech that extend over more than one segment – Stress is associated with syllables – Rhythm, tempo, and intonation are associated with phrases and sentences • Suprasegmental features like stress, rhythm, tempo, and intonation are sometimes referred to collectively as prosody
Linguistics 101: Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2005, SJSU
Linguistics 101: Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2005, SJSU
Intonation
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F0 contour for Jane, Pat, and John
• Intonation refers to the contrastive use of pitch or melody in speech • Different levels of pitch (tones) are used in particular sequences (contours) to express a wide range of meanings • For example, all languages seem to make use of the difference between a falling and rising pitch pattern over utterances – They’re waiting. – They’re waiting? – They’re waiting??!
F0 is the physical basis of perceived pitch
Linguistics 101: Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2005, SJSU
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Linguistics 101: Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2005, SJSU
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Intonation phrase
Pitch declination
• The part of a sentence over which a particular intonation pattern extends is called an intonation phrase • The intonation phrase is a unit of information rather than a syntactically defined unit, but it often overlaps with syntactic units like phrases, clauses, or sentences
• Most languages exhibit a general downward trend of pitch (declination) over the course of an intonation phrase • The completion of a full grammatical unit such as a declarative sentence is often signaled by a distinctive fall in pitch • Incomplete utterances, such as mid-sentence clause breaks where the speaker intends to show there is more coming, often exhibit a slight rise in pitch
Linguistics 101: Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2005, SJSU
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Bonny told Peter she’d plans to leave (×2)
Linguistics 101: Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2005, SJSU
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Some functions of intonation 1. Grammatical: distinguishing grammatical units and contrasts They’re waiting. vs. They’re waiting? 2. Emotional: expressing surprise, boredom, friendliness, . . . They’re waiting??! 3. Information structure: new vs. old information He likes the PINK one vs. He LIKES the pink one 4. Textual: identifying discourse units like paragraphs IBM announced today that. . . 5. Social: identifying social groups and occupations I went to, like, USC?
Linguistics 101: Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2005, SJSU
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Linguistics 101: Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2005, SJSU
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Tone languages
Two types of tone language
• In tone languages, such as Mandarin Chinese, it is possible to change the meaning of a word simply by changing the pitch level at which it is spoken
1. Level tone languages specify a particular pitch level (say, high or low) for each syllable
• Distinctive pitch variations that affect the meaning of a word are called tones • Examples of tone languages include Zulu, Yoruba, Shona, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Thai
• Shona (Zimbabwe) has a 2-way (high/low) distinction: [k`utS´er´a] ‘to draw water’, [k`utS`er`a] ‘to dig’ • Yoruba (Nigeria) has a 3-way distinction: [´o w`a] ‘he existed’, [´o w¯a] ‘he looked for’, [´o w´a] ‘he comes’ 2. In Contour tone languages, pitch changes within the syllable • For example, Mandarin Chinese has four contour tones:
• In fact, a majority of the world’s languages are tone languages
Linguistics 101: Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2005, SJSU
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Pitch-accent languages
Tone 1. level 2. rising 3. falling-rising 4. falling
Example m¯a m´a mˇa m`a
Meaning mother hemp horse scold
Linguistics 101: Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2005, SJSU
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Stress
• Japanese, Swedish, Serbo-Croat, and certain other languages are referred to as pitch-accent languages
• A stressed syllable is pronounced with greater force than an unstressed syllable, and is perceived as more prominent
• Recall that in tone languages, every syllable is associated with a particular tone
• Whereas tones are based on pitch, stress is based on energy
• In a pitch-accent language, one particular syllable in a word is pronounced with a special tone, or ‘accent’
• Languages in which stress contrasts are important include English, German, Czech, Polish, and Swahili
• Like tones, pitch accents are contrastive—they can distinguish different words
– Czech words nearly always have the stress on the first syllable, irrespective of the number of syllables in the word – In Polish and Swahili, the stress is usually on the penultimate (next to last) syllable – English stress patterns are much more complicated
• Examples from Japanese: [h`asi] ‘chopsticks’ [has`i] ‘bridge’ [hasi] ‘edge’ Linguistics 101: Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2005, SJSU
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Linguistics 101: Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2005, SJSU
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Some stress patterns in English words
Sentence stress in English
• Noun-verb oppositions
• English is sometimes called a stress-timed language, because stressed syllables tend to recur at regular intervals of time
an "insult, to in"sult; an "overflow, to over"flow; • Compound words
• Example:
a "walkout, to "walk "out; a "pushover, to "push "over
"Stresses in "English "tend to re"cur at "regular "intervals of "time
• Noun-noun vs. adjective-noun compounds • Because English tries to avoid having stresses too close together, stresses on alternate words are dropped in sentences where they would otherwise come too near one another
a "hot dog, a "hot "dog • Other patterns Noun 1 "diplomat "photograph "monotone
Noun 2 di"plomacy pho"tography mo"notony
– The "big brown "bear ate "ten white "mice – The "unknown "man vs. The "man is un"known
Adjective diplo"matic photo"graphic mono"tonic
Linguistics 101: Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2005, SJSU
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Suprasegmental phonology: summary • Suprasegmental phonology studies intonation and other aspects of speech that extend over more than one segment • An intonation phrase is a part of a sentence over which a particular intonation pattern or pitch contour extends • Tone languages like Mandarin Chinese assign contrastive (meaning-changing) tones to each syllable in a word • In pitch-accent languages like Japanese, one particular syllable in a word is pronounced with a special tone, or ‘accent’ • English is an example of a stress-timed language • A stressed syllable is pronounced with greater force than an unstressed syllable, and is perceived as more prominent Linguistics 101: Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2005, SJSU
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Linguistics 101: Introduction to Linguistics, Spring 2005, SJSU
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